


come hell or high water

by wearealltalesintheend



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Gen, Good Brother Klaus Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, the apocalypse is canceled, vanya starts to get the apreciation she deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 17:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearealltalesintheend/pseuds/wearealltalesintheend
Summary: “I heard a rumor,”Allison writes, fingers trembling, even as she tries another reassuring smile,“it’s gonna be okay.”And Klaus wants so bad to believe her, it nearly works.".or, things go differently when Luther locks Vanya in the cage. Three conversations and one sleepover that happen before the world doesn't end.





	come hell or high water

**Author's Note:**

> okay, this is one is purely me needing a bit more closure than the finale delivered, and the idea where they don't actually go along Luther's terrible plan seemed a good place to start
> 
> Also, I feel like I should mention, this was written entirely while listening to This Year's Love, so you know why it's so melancholic.

 

So, Luther is out of his fucking mind.

 

Or at least, that’s the only thing Klaus can think when he sees Vanya trapped inside a cage like some dangerous animal in a zoo, clawing at the walls and shaking like a leaf. Luther tells them she’s dangerous, she did that to Allison, she has powers, but–

 

But Vanya is crying in that heartbreaking way of hers, and Klaus will always ultimately remember her as the quiet, unassuming kid that would cry whenever Diego and he stepped on any wayward bugs, even the ugly ones. Vanya, who would leave the lights on for Five even after they all long lost hope. Vanya, who would take spiders and butterflies and bees outside before Luther or Diego could kill them.

 

_It doesn’t make any sense._

 

And when he watches her clawing at the door, Klaus thinks that even if all Luther said is true, even then, no one should have to feel that special kind of desperation that comes when the walls inevitably start to close in.

 

Diego agrees with him, for once in their lives, and so does Allison.

 

_“Let her go,”_ Allison writes, and while Klaus feels like they should leave her and Luther alone to have this conversation, Allison stands by the door like a silent sentinel, almost daring them to try and go past her, see how that works out.

 

“She hurt you,” Luther says, like it’s obvious, like that’s all the argument he needs. And maybe, in his head it is. He and Allison always had this way of making everyone else feel they’re intruding on a private conversation.

 

_“You hurt her too,”_ Allison scribbles furiously on her little yellow notebook, jabbing the pen emphatically on the paper before turning a new page. _“We have to stop hurting each other.”_

 

She gestures them all– Luther in the middle of the room, Klaus and Diego off to the side, and Vanya, locked in her cage. She doesn’t mean to include Ben, but he’s there and Klaus thinks of him as part of this too.

 

It’s a nice sentiment, Klaus thinks, as he checks out of the conversation and sits down in front of the metal door. Ben is very much interested in the argument brewing between the three over there, so Klaus figures he’ll let him know if any decision is reached sometime soon, if someone brings Luther’s brain down from the fucking moon. Through the glass window, he sees Vanya scrambling close again, sliding down to kneel by the door with him. She has tear tracks on her cheeks and her eyes are terribly red, and when he rests a hand on the glass, she does too.

 

_“I’m here,”_ he says, even though she can’t hear him, but Vanya nods, wiping her face, and smiles a wobbly, sad little smile.

 

It still feels a tiny bit closer to okay.

 

Looking back, Klaus gets the tail end of the conversation. _“Don’t be him,”_ Allison is glaring at Luther and Diego nods, fingers flexing like he wants to reach for his knives. Nice to see the situation hasn’t escalated to disaster just yet. _“Be you.”_

 

And the thing is, while Luther has always been Number One, he has never been very good at making decisions. If anything, that made him the worst at it. All his life, Luther followed whatever good ol’ dad told him to, like a good little soldier. Now, when faced with them as a united front, he doesn’t know how to say no. Luther never learned, not really.

 

“Please,” Vanya is saying over and over, and Klaus kind of wants to punch Luther because _come on._ She is so scared and so sad and this is their _sister_ – this can’t be the answer.

 

“Get out of the way,” Diego barks, but pushes him back not unkindly, squeezing his shoulder in an almost-apology, and Klaus lets it slide, stepping away from the door so Luther can unlock it as reluctantly as humanly possible. As _super-_ humanly possible.

 

The door gives, swinging open with creaks and moans, and Vanya stumbles out disoriented and afraid, so close to hyperventilating and Diego almost isn’t fast enough to catch her when her knees inevitably buckle. Allison runs as best as she can, throwing her arms around Vanya and cries into her hair. It’s all very touching and Klaus can see how it’s taking everything for Diego to stay there, extremely uncomfortable, holding Vanya up, and not back away from all the emotional shit. He might be allergic to those, you see.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Vanya says over and over, clinging to Allison like she can’t believe she’s really there, like Allison is another one of Klaus’ ghosts. “I didn’t mean to, _I swear,_ I don’t know how– _I’m sorry.”_

 

Allison pulls away a little, offering a shaky smile, and nods. She gestures for her notebook and Luther dives for it, handing it over with awkward glances. He stays there, hovering worriedly like Vanya is a time bomb seconds away from blowing up half the world. _“I heard a rumor,”_ Allison writes, fingers trembling, even as she tries another reassuring smile, _“it’s gonna be okay.”_

 

And Klaus wants so bad to believe her, it nearly works.

 

*

 

It’s an unspoken rule that Vanya should not be alone right now. It’s also an unspoken rule that Allison is the one appointed to keep her company. Klaus says to _keep her company,_ but he’s sure that in Luther’s head it translates to _keep an eye on,_ because sometimes Luther can be a paranoid bastard, because while Dad really did a number in all of them, Luther was the one who stayed the longest.

 

In any case, this whole thing with Ben isn’t working out so great right now. His hands still go right through Ben’s, not a single brush, not even a change in temperature. His arms ache, but they’ve got jack shit to show.

 

“We’ll try again later,” Ben says, looking away, because Ben always kind of knows when to keep pushing and when to give time for Klaus to lick his wounds. “Maybe you need to get angry for it to work.”

 

“I wasn’t angry,” Klaus feels the weird need to defend himself, “I was just frustrated. And going through withdrawal, which is a bitch, by the way.”

 

“I know, we’ll try again later,” Ben agrees in a sad, understanding voice, wandering off the door like he used to do when they were just kids hanging out in this room.

 

“Ben?” Klaus calls after him, leaning out of the room and into the hallway, spots Ben a few feet away, by Allison’s old room. “I– we’ll figure this out too, alright?”

 

Ben grins, “I know, and I sure would love to punch you again.”

 

Klaus laughs, and in the empty hallway, it doesn’t sound like the disobedience it used to be. It just sounds like laughter.

 

“And hey,” he continues, nodding towards the closed door, “for what is worth, I think you should talk to her.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Klaus says, and locks his own door behind him to help ignore the itch to search the floor for the pills Ben knocked out his tongue.

 

*

 

If there’s one thing Klaus remembers is Vanya’s late night snacks.

 

Sometimes, if he was feeling brave, or lonely, or stoned enough not to care if he was caught or not, Klaus would sneak back in through the front door, blissfully high, and the lights Vanya left for Five would guide him drunkenly back up the stairs, and more often than not her peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches would still be on the counter.

 

Always a single plate with two little triangles left.

 

So, now that Klaus has nothing to do and a need not to stay still, he busies himself in the kitchen, cutting the sandwich in four with so much concentration, it feels like performing a life-threatening surgery. Or so he imagines.

 

He climbs back up the stairs with the porcelain plate in hand and knocks hesitantly on Allison’s closed door.

 

There’s silence from the other side, and Klaus berates himself for forgetting that Allison can’t so much as whisper right now. “It’s me,” he says, rapping his knuckles again in an overly cheerful way. There’s rustling inside, and then the door opens, abruptly and no-nonsense.

 

Allison stands again in the doorway.

 

The plate is held up like a peace offering.

 

She looks back at Vanya, sitting up on the bed. Vanya nods.

 

Allison lets him in with narrowed eyes, a silent warning not to screw this up, not to make things worse– and for the record, not that it ever mattered to anyone, but he doesn’t intend to. “I come bearing gifts,” he says, waltzing into the room. Vanya looks pale, and tired, exhausted, really, like even standing still is too much effort for her bones. She’s never been the fiercest of the bunch, but there’s something so faded about her now that Klaus finds himself wishing to make her laugh. “I had the munchies, so I thought to myself, what better way to fix that than with your lovely, lovely PB and marshmallows triangles?”

 

For a moment, nothing happens, but then Allison smacks him playfully in the head, picking up her yellow notebook. _“Sober,”_ she circles on the page, giving him such a knowing look, he ducks his head, suddenly bashful, and Vanya finally cracks a smile.

 

Allison pats his shoulder with a grin, squeezes his arm, and Klaus nods. Yeah, he knows what she means. The door closes with a soft click behind her, and he perches himself at the edge of the bed while Vanya scoots back against the headboard, the chipped plate balanced between them. “Thanks,” she says, picking up a quarter of the sandwich and holding it awkwardly in the air. Neither of them is hungry, he bets, but going through the motions helps not to feel like things are spiraling down too fast for him to catch up, a rabbit hole that he'd rather, for once, not see how much deeper it goes. “Just, thanks,” she repeats, actually taking a tiny bite out of her triangle, and maybe it’s the way she says, but Klaus knows she means more than just PB and marshmallows.

 

“I’m sorry,” he tells his lap because he can’t quite bring himself to look her in the eyes, but Vanya is picking at a loose thread on Allison’s duvet and Klaus hears her sharp intake of breath. There’s a whole lot to be sorry for, and some things are his fault and some are not, but he’s sorry anyway because Allison was right earlier. They’re real fucking good at hurting each other, but they can be better. _Maybe._ Klaus doesn’t want to give them all too much credit, it hardly ever pays off, but still. “Can I tell you a secret I think you already know?”

 

Vanya makes a complicated face, biting her lip. “Is it going to make me mad at you?”

 

“No, but it might make you mad at Dad.”

 

She gives him a tentative half shrug, “I’m already mad at him, so go on.”

 

Taking a bite of his own sandwich to stall, Klaus lies down on the bed and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend it’s just like when they were kids and if he hung around Allison’s room long enough, she would paint his nails too. “When I was thirteen, Dad locked me overnight in the Mausoleum to see if I would finally become good pals with all those ghosts. There was the graveyard, too, but he gave up after I dislocated my shoulder trying to slip through the bars. I wasn’t much of a Houdini, turns out, but talk about camping in the backyard, huh?”

 

The way she says his name then, heavy with the same shit as always yet more open than he heard in years coming from her, tells him that he hasn’t broken his promise to Allison just yet. Klaus is not fucking this one up, scout’s honor. “I didn’t know that’s where Dad left you, I didn’t know it was so bad,” Vanya whispers, “he would always send us to bed early, but I– I’m sorry too.”

 

“Yeah, well,” he says, itching for at least a cigarette, and glances up at the ceiling, the fan spinning lazily above. “Turns out there was a lot of shit we didn’t know.” _There was a lot we didn’t want to know,_ he thinks bitterly along.

 

“He kept a journal,” she offers, and Klaus doesn’t have to look to know she’s nervously pushing her hair out of her eyes, that’s a nervous tell she never quite outgrown. “I read a bit– nothing really, just flipped through. He said– I mean, he _wrote_ – the ghosts,” Vanya trails off, like she’s not sure she knows what she wanted to do with her words. Klaus wonders if that’s why she wrote her book, to make sense of all those words she keeps burying six feet under.

 

“Let’s just say,” Klaus sighs, knowing the shadows in the corner of the room will soon begin taking shape and not the one he’s hoping, oh no. It’s always the angry and the wailing that comes first, unprompted. “I didn’t forget them and they didn’t forget me. Sharing is caring, and all that crap, but that’s enough on this, I think.” He pauses, glancing at her face, “do you get why I’m telling you this shit?”

 

“I do,” Vanya says softly, quietly, takes the plate from the mattress and leaves it on the bedside table, before lying down herself beside him. While his legs touch the floor, hers dangle in the air, and for some reason, Klaus finds it the funniest thing right now. “I’m scared,” she confesses after a long, drawn-out minute of silence, and Klaus goes completely still. He’s not the kind of person anyone has ever come looking for either comfort or advice, except maybe Ben, but Ben is stuck with him on this shitty afterlife of his, so he doubts it really counts. Luther had, once just a couple of days ago, but Klaus figures that was more in hopes of getting him to hook him up with his dealer than any real wish for solace.

 

“I know,” he says, debating with himself if he should tell her about Ben and the Incident with The Punch, but ultimately decides a few secrets should stay in the dark. There's already too many of those in the light. “But look, look. Five is always walking around like he knows everything, isn’t he? So, maybe he’ll know _something,_ or, well, more than me. He knows all about physics and energy and shit, right? By the way, are you sure you want to talk to _me_ about this, and not, say– Diego? I know he’s emotionally constipated, but he has the awkward comforting thing down. Or maybe Allison? She’s probably the least likely to break out in hives when feelings are involved.”

 

That surprises a burst of laughter out of her, and Vanya looks startled herself for a half a second before relaxing in a small gentle smile. “You’re doing fine,” she tells him, so sincerely that Klaus feels the need to point out he didn’t do anything besides maybe mope. “Just stay with me for a bit? Until Allison gets back?”

 

“Sure,” because _this,_ he can do. Allison’s room has always been sunnier, lighter, than his, and with Vanya beside him, Klaus thinks the odds of the shadows staying only shadows are a little better and while he’s still itching distractingly underneath his skin for– a cigarette, alcohol, pills, _something–_ not being alone helps with that too. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I drove an Ice Cream truck?"

 

*

 

Klaus doesn’t know when he fell asleep, but he wakes up with Allison tiptoeing back into her room.

 

The bandages on her throat are fresh and clean and her hair is still dripping a little, but she’s already on her softest sweatpants, so Klaus takes the hint and stands up, stumbling on the rug with the clumsiness of the half-asleep.

 

Her arms steady him, and Allison shakes her head fiercely, but Klaus can’t take the bed, not when she had been literally nearly dead not even twenty hours ago. He gestures her bandaged throat and points at the bed in his best Five impression, and Allison snorts quietly, bringing her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound, but her other hand wraps around his wrist tugging him to _stay._

 

They are in the middle of this standoff when Diego clears his throat from the door. He’s carrying a sleeping Five on his arms and looking exhausted himself, as if today had managed to wring out the last of the marrow on his bones. Behind him, Luther hovers, not meeting anyone’s eyes, tense in his every line.

 

Somehow, they had all converged into Allison’s old bedroom.

 

Even Ben, who sneaks past Diego to sit at the edge of the bed.

 

Allison glances around, face softening impossibly, and they all turn to see Vanya sitting up, blinking sluggishly at them, apprehension dawning slowly– although, when her eyes land on Five, she quirks up a tiny ghost of a smile, probably remembering all those years with the kitchen light on.

 

“We’re having a sleepover,” Klaus explains, wincing at his own loud volume and everyone shushes him with varying levels of glares of doom. “Sorry, sorry. Anyway, come have a sleepover downstairs?”

 

If anyone had any objections, it all falls silent at the way Vanya nods, flashing a fleeting but brilliant grin. She’s already looking less like a black and white photo, more technicolor.

 

It’s a start.

 

On the living room, Diego dumps Five in one of the couches by the bar, leaving the softer, more comfortable ones for Vanya and Allison. He and Luther wrestle the armchairs closer to them, and Klaus immediately chooses one to curl up on, accepting the pillow Allison throws him. Diego takes the other, while Luther awkwardly lies down on the couch across Five, not really fitting in the narrow frame. Ben snorts, sprawls against the armchairs.

 

It’s a strange way to have a sleepover, what with the way they scatter around the room, but it’s fitting, he thinks. You can’t cross a mile in a second, and you most certainly can’t cross a decade of careful avoidance in a night.

 

Still, they can’t argue if they’re all asleep, and Vanya is already snoring quietly against her pillow, and when he meets her eyes across the room, Allison smiles. Luther, in turn, snores loudly, and Diego keeps shifting on his armchair, making it creak annoyingly every ten seconds, and sometimes they can hear Five mutter some weird shit in his sleep that doesn’t sound English at all. But along with the kitchen light, it helps keep everything else silent for once.

 

*

 

The moon shines pale in the sky, and the world quietly lives on.

**Author's Note:**

> hey, if you liked comments are always nice, or you can cry with me about this stupid show on [my tumblr.](https://rad-hoodd.tumblr.com)


End file.
